Girl Scout cookie sales go high-tech

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MIAMI, Jan. 25 (UPI) -- Girl Scouts in Florida say they're turning to technology -- a smartphone app -- to help in their annual fundraising cookie sales.

As girls fan out to grocery stores, pharmacies and shopping malls to sell Thin Mints, Samoas and Dulce de Leche cookies, the app will help potential buyers know where they are.

"After you download the app, put in the ZIP Code and it will ask if you are looking for sales going on today, the weekend or the next seven days," Eva Prada of the Girl Scout Council of Tropical Florida told The Miami Herald. "The app will even take you to Google maps."

The Cookie Locator app is available for iPhones and for Android handsets.

A national Girl Scout cookie sales locator also is available on the Internet at cookielocator.littlebrownie.com, and many older Girl Scouts are using social media, including Facebook, to publicize their own sales efforts.

"Technology definitely has helped today's girls," Tara Tookes-Haslem, a Miami Girl Scout unit leader, said. "We did it the old fashioned way, door-to-door."

In 2012, the Girl Scouts sold about $790 million worth of cookies in the United States.

"Not bad for little girls," Prada said. "These are our future [chief executive officers]. And one day, we will have a Girl Scout in the White House."